


Make Some Waves

by Vihuri



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Canon timeline but with pirates, Drama, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Hog and Rat past speculation, Humour, Introspection, Language!, M/M, Pirate AU, Ridiculousness, Some angst, Tags to be added, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-01-29 18:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12636282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vihuri/pseuds/Vihuri
Summary: Roadhog is sick of spending all of his life in a post-apocalyptic melancholy and sets out to find the ocean. He finds his new life there as the captain of his own pirate ship, but getting rid of his old ways turns out to be an even bigger challenge. Then he encounters someone at sea who is loud, weird, frankly pretty terrifying and inexplicably irresistible. This is the new age of piracy, and these two are going to set the ocean on fire.





	1. To the Edge of the World

Their world had ended years ago, but as humanity was ever the bunch of rats and cockroaches it had always been, a new one had inevitably oozed out of the radiation-clogged pores of the old one. The survivors of the apocalypse had erected a fitting tribute to that death of civilisation and goodwill in the wasteland left behind by the blast. The land was dead, and the society Mako Rutledge had once known had gone with it. He had already been living on its outskirts to begin with, here in the vast Outback. He still did now. Not many others survived without the 'protection' of Junkertown, and surviving with it was not much easier if one could not tolerate the conditions it came with.

Mako Rutledge had never been good at tolerating conditions thrust upon him by outside forces. That's why he'd lived here in the first place, as his own lord and master. He had been silent, but never quiet. That's why he'd been willing to fight for this land... and look now what it had brought him, to him and to the land he had called home: Mako Rutledge had died in that Pyrrhic victory, and his corpse now walked this desert as the monster called Roadhog. The once limitless sky and land stretching out as far as the eye could see had become confines he strained against but couldn't break. He hated it. Hated most of the people still alive. Hated himself at times, too, for the part he had played in creating his own prison while fighting for his freedom.

Since his confines couldn't break, one day it had finally happened to his tolerance for the circumstances. There were still some people around from the old days. There had been more, but they had left years ago in search of a different kind of blue expanse. It had seemed like a stupid idea then, and damn if Roadhog didn't think it was stupid now. What kind of idiot would some day just decide to trek across the post-nuclear Outback until they hit the sea? Quite a few of them, it had turned out, a group of young idiots leaving every now and then in the hopes of finding out what had become of the first expedition. Most of them came back soon with their tail between their legs - actual tail in some cases, courtesy of the radiation. Some were never seen again.

And whichever was more likely to happen to Roadhog who was always alone, lately he had been wondering if being an idiot for a change wasn't better than simply rotting here until he was too old and weak to defend himself against the looters. One day he had walked into Junkertown to trade with Bruce and ended up asking more about the ones who had left. What their plans had been. If Bruce thought they had any chance of survival out there. And most importantly, if the old mechanic had a map Roadhog could use. Turned out he did and was happy to give it to an old friend; he wasn't going to be leaving Junkertown at his age, if the Queen would even allow a valuable engineer to leave without making a fuss, but he had been glad that Roadhog was still his old independent self.

"If you make it to the ocean," he had said, "don't let them ignore you. Make some waves."

Roadhog had just nodded. He had known it was most likely the last time they would see each other. What could he possibly say to that? He had gathered as many supplies as he could bring with him, taken his faithful old bike and simply left. Walls had ears in places like Junkertown, and Roadhog had been annoyed but not surprised to see a small group follow him out into the wasteland, always within view but beyond shooting distance. Too tenacious to be just after supplies that would cost them lives and limbs. He considered taking them all out some night, but the distance they kept eventually began to seem almost respectful, and Roadhog figured they just wanted to find the ocean as well. He'd consulted his map, made in the old days, and found old roads that led to abandoned servos that had once been signs of people actually living out here. Sometimes there had been some petrol left, sometimes not; sometimes, when old Mako had inexplicably reared his dead head somewhere in the back of Roadhog's mind, he'd left some for the group still on his horizon. His map had led him to small towns that still had some useful things left, and he'd seen his followers more closely as they had roamed the streets.

Amazing that their piece of junk car... thing hadn't failed them yet. Even more amazing that they'd been allowed to drive a working vehicle out of Junkertown. They had most likely had to come up with a very convincing lie to be able to do that. Even more likely, they had someone who was capable of keeping the vehicle functional. Probably been planning this for a long while. Despite still being a little annoyed at becoming an unwilling guide to a group of post-apocalyptic misfits, Roadhog had been able to at least appreciate that.

"Hey," he had finally said to one of them he had caught perusing the contents of an abandoned home. "Want to loot as much as you can here." The kid's eyes had looked like they had been about to pop out of his skull. Nice to see that Roadhog was still able to sneak so silently despite his size. "Map says this is last town before the coast."

Still clearly scared shitless, the kid had nodded like one of those bobblehead figures Mako remembered from the time before. He had left him there to sort out his own scavenging; he was absolutely not going to help these people with their hunting or looting, but they had come this far already and had only ever seemed interested in making it to the ocean. Later Roadhog had seen them wait in town as he had left, still keeping that distance as if to thank him for his mercy. Good. Smart. Likely to make it to the ocean after him.

He'd stopped for a long while when he had finally seen it glimmer blue and green and unspoiled at the end of the land. Had seen it many times before, had remembered it all these years when he hadn't been able to see it, in memories he had squashed in anger before they could trigger longing, as well as in dreams that seemed to linger forever after he had woken in a helpless rage. Swum in it back home as a boy. Caught many things that lived in it. The moment had felt almost too holy to break by actually reaching that place and making it real.

He'd looked back and seen the kids stare at that endless blue reaching far, far beyond their sight. That ever-shifting road to the world they had never known. Roadhog hadn't been able to see their faces, but he'd been sure their jaws had all dropped. And still, one of them had quickly stirred and raised something to his face; a flash of reflected light, far too wide to be from a sniper's sights, had told Roadhog they had found some sort of telescope while looting. He'd turned to look at where it had pointed, being guided in turn, and then he'd seen it.

The town had been mostly hidden from Roadhog's sight, but the kid had been able to see it better from the roof of their vehicle. When Roadhog had driven closer, the cliffs and slopes had gradually fallen away to reveal a port town, a _living_ town, and a stretch of green that hadn't been the sea after all. Roadhog had hurried towards it, almost forgetting to keep an eye on the group following him. Roadhog had been barely able to think in that moment, and honestly speaking it hadn't mattered. He'd simply fanged it into the town, and as he'd sat there on his bike, just watching and breathing everything, he'd learned that day that the smell of salt in the air could both break and mend something in a dead man's heart.

"From Junkertown?" someone brave enough to finally approach the enormous stranger had asked. Roadhog had nodded, for once just not trusting his voice not to break rather than being his silent self, and he had heard the kids behind him, voices raised in awe and too excited to keep their distance.

It had been pretty simple after that. Roadhog had found out that some of the people from before were still alive and active here. He would've been allowed in easily enough without that little bonus, but it certainly hadn't hurt to have old friends in town. He'd quickly learned that Port Green didn't send out ships to just fish; many of the inhabitants spent most of their time on the sea robbing ships from more fortunate countries, and this port was their home away from home. While Roadhog hadn't been surprised that such news from the world wouldn't travel to Junkertown anymore, the thought of modern day Australian pirates certainly hadn't been one he would have ever come up with on his own. The kids, never having known the world before the blast, hadn't found it jarring at all. Making it to the coast in Roadhog's wake had made them a little more comfortable with their dangerous guide, and one day he ended up on the receiving end of their excited pirate talk. Apparently the town would sometimes sponsor the building of new ships for a share of the spoils, and Roadhog's reputation with the town leaders would make him a good candidate. He'd also had quite a reputation back in Junkertown, so the brats knew just how deadly he could be. Very quickly it became clear that they wanted to be pirates as well, with Roadhog as their captain.

Roadhog had always been a bit of - well, a lot of - a lone hog, even before the days of the crisis. That's why he'd made the conscious choice to live in the Outback. People had always known better than to mess with him - he was, after all, a one man apocalypse. Roadhog thought of his days of being part of a sort of Team Apocalypse, and had almost told the kids to piss off before he put them on his hook and used them as shark bait. He'd been angry for a few days, but once he'd had some time to calm down and stare at the waves from the window of his room, he'd been able to think of it more clearly for a few more days. He had recognised the necessity and problem of needing a crew before he could be at peace at sea, and he had found it a tolerable price to pay. Had gone to talk to his friends.

And then, months and some much needed recruitments later, he had stood almost in disbelief before a newly built ship that was meant to take him out to sea. His crew had waited patiently, no one daring to rush a pirate captain, much less one who could tear anyone on the crew limb from limb with his bare hands. There'd been some excited talks about naming the ship; Roadhog hadn't been able to bring himself to care, but apparently even Junkertown kids grew up on glorified pirate stories and simply couldn't let it be. Roadhog hadn't really trusted the naming choices of people whose best ideas for their own pirate monikers were either some variation of 'Bloody Jonno' or rhymed with 'Azza', but his sea-longing had temporarily affected his judgement, and so he had agreed to hear some of their ideas.

Although glad that no one dared to suggest Tidehog for either him or his ship, Roadhog's patience had been stretched thin as he had shot down names like The King Hit, The Wave Hoon, and The Furiosa - the last one wasn't actually terrible, and Roadhog had actually spent a moment in impressed reflection of the way the stories of old films lived on in campfire stories people were once again telling each other in the absence of multimedia. Still, the thought of taking a name from something that depicted a dystopian Australia decades before it had really happened made him vaguely uncomfortable, and the name had been rejected.

Bloody Jonno had finally suggested The War Pig. Whether it had been because he really knew of a century-old song from the great-great-grandfather of metal or had at that point just been slapping together words he thought might please his captain, Roadhog hadn't cared. Not even enough to consider the lyrics and their relation to his past; he liked pigs and he liked Black Sabbath, and so the name had stuck.

While Roadhog hadn't liked losing his solitude at first, he had quickly found his crew still feared him enough to avoid disturbing him. He had found the sea a wonderful sanctuary from the wastes of his country, as well as an opportunity for some relaxing slaughter when things got too boring and his blood too hot, and his returns to Port Green were always tinged with some sadness. The sea was now a home to return to - not just to ride the waves, but to make them.

Oh, he had no clue what was waiting for him on those waves.

 


	2. Who Would Have Thought

Just as he had expected, Roadhog had taken so well to a life on the ocean that the constant presence of his crew was something he could fairly easily tolerate for now. Probably for a few years at least. And what then? Well, turned out the coast wasn't such a bad place to live. In fact, he kind of missed it when he was away. Some part of him still dreamed of his old farm in his old life, and he couldn't help but wonder if it would be possible, maybe, once he was done sailing full-time...

Yeah, probably not. Mako would've been able to return to that life. Get a nice little house and a few piggies and live there all alone, master of his own life and property, and only show up to town when he needed supplies. Keep a little boat so he could go out to the sea on his own. Eat seafood he had caught himself. Watch his pigs play and grow. Read his books. Live at peace with himself and what he had.

Yeah, no.

Roadhog's eyes scanned the ocean, the darkened lenses of his mask a permanent layer of twilight pulled over everything he saw. They'd been at this for a couple of years already, he and his crew, and Roadhog now had a reputation on the sea as well. If they saw another ship out there, it was either prey... or another predator stalking the waves, looking to put another notch on their cannons.

Cannons. Right. Roadhog almost snorted at that. Weapons and ships were far more advanced these days - hell, they could even produce their own electricity - but his younger ex-Junkertown crew still insisted on their old-timey pirate lingo when their captain was in a good enough mood to tolerate it. Their looted telescope had become their spyglass, and Roadhog was pretty sure he could hear a sort of half-whispered, half-giggled 'arr' every now and then even when the crew knew not to get on his nerves. No doubt they were getting some of their ideas from the pirate films they could watch now.

Yep, films again. The older and more experienced recruits from Port Green knew the latest tricks for streaming live video and downloading things for offline use without getting detected, and they'd been happy to share their knowledge with the younger crewmembers. Roadhog was doing his best to get up to date on technology again too, but he found that he wasn't as excited about cinema as he'd thought when it hadn't been available. (At one point he had heard Beheader-Pete discuss showing him some old Australian classic called 'Babe' he had somehow missed, but the others had told him to forget it if he didn't want to become the beheaded one. Roadhog hadn't bothered to look into it.) Ebooks and music, though, now those were something he could spend hours on while the rest of the crew minded the ship and kept an eye out for other ships. The perks of being the captain. The crew wasn't that much to deal with most of the time either, really. The brats had really grown into their new role as a modern day pirate crew.

Also, even Bloody Jonno and Bleeding Bazza had earned their ridiculous names many times over, so there was that.

Today was a slow day, on the sea and in the world of buccaneering both. The War Pig was actually on its way to Port Green now. (Some crewmembers had wanted to call the ship 'her', but others had felt that giving a metal construct a gender was getting a _bit_ too close to that omnic shit, even if the ship was non-sentient.) The loot had been good lately and basic supplies were beginning to run low, so now was a good time to go make another payment on the ship and buy more necessities. Roadhog gave a satisfied glance to the wreck they were towing back to the Australian coast with them. Plenty of good metal for all sorts of important Port Green projects. Unlike the Junkertown queen's taxes, this was not something Roadhog was unwilling to pay; he had seen with his own eyes that the materials brought to the port from the sea were put to good use and often managed to benefit the whole town in some way.

That was while the town was still on the small side, of course, and its people unified in their goals to make it happen. Eventually all sorts of unreliable crooks would begin to rear their ugly heads, general selfishness would increase, pirate town versions of suits would begin to take advantage of those who would inevitably become poor and weak. That was society on the large scale. That was humanity. One of the many reasons Mako Rutledge had withdrawn into the Outback, and why he had still been able to join the Australian Liberation Front; he had known that a small group with a single task would be trustworthy until the task was completed. And, Roadhog had to admit, he had been defending his own home first, but there had been some ideal of selflessness at work as well.

Young people... all the time in the world to be idiots, free of the regrets that would follow.

"Captain! Captain!" Pete screeched, eyeball practically glued to his teles... _spyglass_ , scanning the horizon. "It's a ship!"

A foreign ship this close to the port was not good news. The town had some measures against being detected, but there was a general consensus between Port Green pirates that all encountered foreign pirate crews would be destroyed to the last crewmember if possible, and under no circumstances led back to their base. It would be stupid to take risks while the town was still small, not to mention the fact that if their nationality (did they even have one anymore?) _and_ exact location were brought back to Australia's neighbours, word might travel to governmental level and the still powerful and wealthy parts of Australia might be moved to put an end to their pirate business.

"Indonesians?" Roadhog asked, squinting at the ship now just about visible to the naked eye.

Beheader-Pete stood a moment in silence, one eye squeezed so tightly shut with nervousness that it looked like it might stay that way for a while. "I... I think they're omnics, Captain."

Roadhog froze in rage. They had encountered some omnic ships before - some violent like them, others made for law enforcement purposes, all absolutely deserving of a swift but merciless demolition. "Then you know what to do," he growled, gripping his hook.

And they did. The crew quickly took their battle stations, even the most ridiculous of them finally serious enough to drop the old-time pirate fantasy for a moment. Well, not that it would've been easy to pretend on a ship made of metal rather than wood, armed with post-apocalyptic Junker cannons and a looted laser gun. Speaking of which, Acker (who, naturally, insisted on pronouncing his name as 'Ache-er') was already manning it and preparing to fire. He had a good eye; clearly he had seen an opening in the ship's defences. That was lucky. Omnic ships could be infuriating to attack sometimes.

"Ship looks like it's already seen some battle today," Pete commented, frowning into his spyglass. "The omnics too - I see some with missing parts. Not pretty."

"Why the hell are they coming after us, then?" groaned Hamster Jim (Roadhog had _not_ asked him why he had willingly chosen to name himself that and probably never would), preparing his shotgun for close range combat.

Roadhog supposed they would announce their purpose soon enough, and he wasn't wrong: almost immediately after the thought had passed, a robotic voice began to boom from the ship's speakers, cycling through several languages until it hit English.

_"Surrender, outlaws, or prepare for combat! All who resist our authority will be subdued."_

Roadhog's blood boiled. Those metal bastards had taken his home, his life and his _identity_ as a human being. Authority? _Authority_? "Show them how we deal with broken machines in the Outback," he growled to his crew. The ship was already near, its speed yet another difference from the world of classic pirates. Roadhog raised his hook and wasted no time in singling out his first catch. "Here, little piggy," he muttered darkly and let the hook fly.

The first omnic was the most intact-looking of the bunch. Roadhog had chosen that one on purpose. As soon as it hit the deck, several pirates descended on it, neatly ridding the ship of its strongest combat omnic. They had expected others to follow, and follow they did; too eager to capture the pirates, too eagerly into the waiting arms of furious, battle-hardened Junkers who had no love or mercy for the reason their land had died. They were quickly torn apart by Roadhog and the more experienced pirates while the Junkertown brats gave support from a distance. Acker focused on the omnics still on their own ship, dropping them with well-aimed blasts to the circuits.

All in all, the battle was going very well - in fact, it was so easy to blast the omnics apart that Roadhog thought of the fact that they had announced no nationality or affiliation, which could mean they were outlaws as well. They'd find it much harder to find someone to repair them, then. Maybe a disgraced coast guard ship, hoping to regain its honour by capturing criminals? After some of the things he'd seen on the sea, it didn't sound that unlikely at all. Some of these machines went crazy out here. Guess they did have at least some things in common with humans. They certainly came apart just as satisfyingly.

Once they were done mopping the decks of both ships with malfunctioning machines, some of the crew jumped over to the omnic ship to do some much needed investigating to determine if it was safe to tow the whole thing. If it was, this had turned out to be a lucky battle after all; they would be taking _two_ ships home, and the other one had a crew that could also be scavenged for spare parts. Jonno and Bazza were already busy dismantling them to make sure there were no trackers and the omnics wouldn't be able to turn themselves back on or anything.

"Captain," Pete called again, back to watching the ship through his gadgets from the safety of his own ship. "Radar says there's an organic lifeform on the ship. Well, mostly. Guess they've got falsies or something." Pete squinted at his radar, but the outdated machine refused to give a more sophisticated reading. They really needed a new one.

"Go see what it is, then," Roadhog commanded, also preparing to board the omnic ship.

"Aye aye," someone dared to quip, quite correctly assuming that his captain was in a fairly decent mood after such a successful day.

The omnic ship was eerily quiet - dead, one who considered them practically human might say, and Roadhog didn't. However, he was intrigued by all the signs of damage he was seeing now that he could really take a closer look at them. His crew's weapons definitely hadn't caused all this destruction. Something had taken whole pieces off the ship and its omnic crew, enough to leave them significantly weakened, but it hadn't been used with much skill; with more precise aiming, this ship would probably be at the bottom of the sea right now, or at least its crew entirely in pieces. Odd.

Roadhog suddenly heard a nervous giggle from somewhere under the deck.

 _"...so you're Junkers, then?"_ that same voice asked, not belonging to anyone on the crew, but somehow familiar.

"Who wants to know?" Hamster asked with some suspicion, peering down at the source of the voice. As an older Port Green recruit, he hadn't been anywhere near Junkertown for a couple of decades and didn't trust his ability to recognise the latest accent.

As Roadhog stalked closer, the voice became clearer. "No one, no one," a man was saying below the deck. It sounded like he was shivering. "Aussies, uh, still don't attack other Aussies, right?" Without any sort of warning, he sneezed so loudly that even the tiny room that had previously muffled his voice could do nothing against him. "Bloody hell, it's cold in here. Don't suppose I could come out of here, mate? Today?"

Roadhog grinned under his mask, toying with the idea of letting the brat know that technically speaking he was a Kiwi, not an Aussie. Making a good first impression was always important, and what better way than a dawning sense of dread? Watch him squeak and shake in his boots a bit.

...or boot, it turned out as he finally took a look at the freezing man. A peg leg, really? In this time and age? His hand and part of his arm was also a prosthetic, and Roadhog thought that the man was only one eyepatch away from needing a parrot for his shoulder. The left one, preferably, as he seemed to have bad luck with his right side. Bad luck with his whole body in general - those signs of malnourishment and radiation were clear proof of his origins, and what was left of his hair looked burned.

It hit Roadhog all of a sudden, who this man was. He'd heard _of_ him more than he'd personally heard him, the one who had found some mysterious treasure in the depths of the omnium and been chased everywhere for it. One day he had simply disappeared without a trace. It had bothered Roadhog at the time, but it wasn't like he could have just gone and asked if the Queen's people had anything to do with it, and no one had left for the coast at the time. Come to think of it, it had been one of the reasons he'd been so sick of Junkertown near the end, regardless of what had really happened; for all the boasting of anarchy and no rules, the Queen had a lot of unspoken and a few explicitly stated rules in place. This man had been one of those people who just couldn't stop breaking them and had apparently paid the price for it. Mako had lived in a time when people had been better equipped to recognise such hypocrisy. Most of the young ones knew no better. As much as Roadhog tried to not care, to not waste energy and rage on a battle he couldn't win, Mako had been furious that a human being could be so easily disposed of because he _talked_ too much. A human being! The ones he'd fought for so hard so their lives wouldn't be given over to omnics! Fury and frustration suddenly swelled in _Mako_ , not Roadhog, and his growl startled his crewmembers and the man below the deck.

"Junkrat," he said with a brooding rage that was not directed at the man himself, but of course made him nervous.

The Port Green recruits only looked puzzled. A look of recognition flashed in the eyes of the former Junkertown kids - then, a look of greed. They glanced at their captain, then back at Junkrat, eyes filled with it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's a fine how do you do, Mako!


	3. The Rat That Wanted to Leave the Ship

"Yeah... yeah," Junkrat admitted after a small, uncertain pause. Even in Junkertown, which was filled with young, irradiated no-hopers with an assorted number of missing body parts, Junkrat managed to be distinctive enough that he was almost immediately recognisable on description alone. Looked like even a man with a reputation for missing half his brain on top of everything else knew better than to try passing himself off as some nobody without a secret that had made him a target.

Then it occurred to Roadhog that the younger part of his crew, who actually had lived in Junkertown all their lives, hadn't recognised Junkrat before their captain. It was sort of a frustrating thought, so Roadhog hoped they'd just been too busy with their leaving Junkertown fantasies to bother with Junkrat back then. They looked pretty ready to take advantage of this opportunity now, though, with their monstrous captain and older crew at their back. Roadhog could hardly fault them for their opportunism - they _were_ pirates, after all. However...

"Wipe that look off your faces," he grunted, startling the young ones again. "You want to run back to your queen, feel free to hit the wasteland on your own."

Some of them flinched at this shotgun blast of common sense entering their skulls, and their faces were indeed wiped clean of the traces of their idiocy.

"Oh, uh... nah," Caz muttered, lowering her machete.

"But... the treasure," Bazza offered weakly, waving his arm in the general direction of the Australian coast.

As Roadhog took a moment to appreciate the fact that treasure _was_ a central part of these brats' pirate fantasies, Junkrat gathered enough courage to voice his disagreement. "Hey, hey," he said with a shuddering wave of his left arm before he put it back around his torso. Bloody hell, he wasn't even wearing a shirt. "I never said _anything_ about knowing where this supposed treasure is buried. In fact, I keep saying that to everyone who asks, but no one believes me!"

"Right, well, you've run your mouth about _some_ treasure or something enough that everybo..."

"Bazza," Roadhog barked, taking some satisfaction in the way the little bleeder jumped. He glanced at the shivering man below the deck. "Get out of there."

Blinking at this possibly maybe good fortune, Junkrat began to make his way up. He had some trouble with the ladder and his peg leg - why the hell did an omnic ship even have a storage space with a ladder some of them wouldn't be able to use? Maybe there had been a human crew at some point. Maybe the omnics had taken over, and wouldn't that be just what the idiots got for trusting sentient, self-assembling murderbots. Whatever the case, Roadhog would leave finding any clues to that to any of the would-be historians that would be going through this ship's guts back home.

"Cheers, mate," Junkrat said cheerfully to Roadhog once he was out of the freezing storage space and it looked like no one was going to jump him and torture him for his secrets.

"Not your mate," Roadhog grunted, inspecting the man before him. The life on the sea really hadn't treated him much better than life in Junkertown treated most of its inhabitants. Going by the descriptions, he'd lost the limbs long before leaving, but clearly he hadn't benefited much from a ship's ability to haul food right out of the surrounding water.

Junkrat looked a little taken aback at the verbal rejection and the invasive silence that followed. He squinted up at Roadhog as if looking for answers in the dark circles of his gas mask. "Come on, you knew what I meant," he muttered, as though having decided that he could afford to push a little, "mate."

Roadhog wasn't sure what to make of this. People usually didn't push their luck with him. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time. "Not your mate, _mate_ ," he repeated. "How'd you end up on an omnic ship?"

"Ah, well, not out of my free will, I can tell you that for nothing." Junkrat seemed a little bitter, but at the same time glad that he could keep talking. "Bastards demolished my last ship - didn't join that one out of my free will either, by the way - and I was the last one alive after that." He'd been carefully holding his mechanical arm away from his bare skin, but now he flexed the metal fingers, staring at them as though looking for signs of frost. "No idea where they were taking me. Just glad they're scrap now."

Roadhog gave some more thought to his theory of former coast guard omnics. "You keep getting on ships against your will," he pointed out.

Relaxing a bit, Junkrat let out a weird giggle. "Guess I've got a reputation on the sea now, too!"

"Not with Australian pirates," said Roadhog. _Thought you were dead in the desert somewhere_ , he thought, but it would have sounded far too matey and concerned to say aloud to someone he hadn't personally even met before. It was just some lingering anger for the Queen and the way her fucked up rule treated her people.

"I've been far away, seen faraway places!" Junkrat announced proudly, straightening his back and putting his hands on his bony hips.

He flinched a little at his own metal hand's coldness, but that wasn't what drew everybody's attention to him in that moment. The sudden addition to his height was downright startling. He didn't _look_ like someone who should've been able to grow that tall. The crewmembers who had just moments ago eyeballed him like an inconveniently living treasure map blinked now with a touch of nervousness, reassessing their first impressions of him.

"I've seen Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia! Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia!" Junkrat's hands were beginning to move as if life was returning to his chilled body. "Probably would've gone as far as Japan if my ship back then hadn't sunk. Pity about that, the crew weren't half bad."

Roadhog considered this for a moment. After getting access to current news, he had certainly heard a bit more of the resurgence of piracy in the rest of the world in the last few decades or so, but so far Australian ships had been a bit behind the tides with the post-apocalyptic lack of resources and all. It would make sense that if one Aussie pirate made it out into the wider world, the ones with more limited access to the sea might never hear of it, especially with the embarrassed way the news tried to avoid the whole topic when they could get away with it. Roadhog grinned under his mask. Nothing strange about that last bit, really. Taking to the ocean was one of the few ways people could completely avoid omnics these days, depending on where they went or at least as long as their ships were fast enough. How nice to see the topic was still as touchy as ever.

However, his musings had raised one more question. "How'd you get to the sea in the first place?" Roadhog asked. They couldn't have come to recruit Junkrat all the way from Junkertown, after all.

"Ah..." Some of Junkrat's intimidating height disappeared again as he shrank, pulling his shoulders down. "Yeah, that's another one of those I had no say in. Rather not talk about it right now if it's all the same with you."

It probably shouldn't have been all the same with Roadhog. At least not if they'd still been in Junkertown or anywhere near it. Couldn't just go and trust any bugger you met in the desert, after all, even if what Roadhog had heard of Junkrat made the brat sound slightly more trustworthy than the average Outback scavenger. Just for refusing to conform to tyranny disguised as anarchy. A bit of a ratbag, one might say.

_Damn it._

Roadhog glanced at Junkrat one more time, increasingly uncomfortable with the tolerance he seemed to be developing. It didn't _look_ like the brat was hiding anything suspicious on his body. Apart from the lone boot, he was only wearing a pair of torn camo shorts, too. "Fine," he finally growled, "but don't think we're just gonna trust you because you're from the Outback. We'll talk about it, sooner or later."

There was a flash of a look that very much belonged on a kicked puppy's face, but Junkrat quickly replaced it with a confident grin. "A bit of empathy, mate," he said with a cackle, "I'm on me last leg here!"

Roadhog was certainly glad that his mask hid the incredulous look he had on his face. "Get on our ship," he said without a shred of the requested empathy. He'd let them deal with Junkrat back in Port Green.

"Oh... oh, cheers, mate!" Junkrat carried on in that same jovial tone as if Roadhog hadn't just been doing almost everything in his power sans violence to discourage him. "Now what about my explosives, though?"

Now Roadhog froze on his way to The War Pig, wondering if he shouldn't just completely reassess the way he had already chosen to deal with this situation. Some of the other crewmembers had just shifted uncomfortably as well. "Your _what_?" Roadhog all but shouted, turning to glare at Pete. The young pirate had gone very pale, shaking his nearly useless radar. They _really_ needed a new one.

"Yeah, they put all my explodey stuff in storage somewhere!" It was starting to look like the perpetual movement Junkrat seemed to be in had nothing to do with his thawing process anymore. He gave an abrupt full-body twitch of outrage, eyeing the deck of the omnic ship. "Those electro-wankers confiscated them from me when they slaughtered the rest of my last ship. Mind you, it _was_ their own fault they all carked it - if they'd let me do the bombing, this ship would already be rusting at the bottom of the sea!"

True, Junkrat had been described as a bomb user. It wasn't _that_ uncommon in Junkertown, but apparently explosives had been sort of his thing. Roadhog took another look at the man's replaced limbs and snorted before he could stop himself. Yeah, he could kind of see that.

Junkrat heard the sound of amusement and cackled wildly in response. "That's right, don't blame your crew for not detecting my bombs because my bombs are just that _ace_." He spread his arms triumphantly, rising to his full height again. "Demolitionist Junkrat at your service, Captain! The rest of the crew kills the enemy pirates. I kill the ship!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Managed to squeeze in one more update before the end of the month! December is always pretty busy, but I'm hoping to add another chapter then if I can.


	4. Mako's Ghost

For a moment, Roadhog could only stare at Junkrat in a baffled silence. He really wasn't used to people being so relaxed around him. Junkrat had apparently been fairly easy to intimidate back in Junkertown, even with his explosives and ability to talk himself out of most situations, but clearly his experiences at sea had been very good for his confidence. Dangerously good, maybe. Come to think of it, he'd been stuffed unarmed into a storage room that had been slowly freezing him immobile. Maybe the omnics had known something about him that Roadhog couldn't even imagine. It _was_ a bit odd that they would capture and contain a single pirate when the rest of the crew had been destroyed. Even if it was just a case of droid rot or something, Roadhog decided to be careful not to underestimate Junkrat. He wasn't so sure all of his crew had come to the same conclusion, though; some of them were already over Junkrat's startling height and back to looking unimpressed, while others were trying very hard not to look star-struck by the appropriately piratey pegleg. At least they were predictable that way, but it frustrated Roadhog that they weren't using their valuable opportunity with all this new technology to learn some bloody thinking skills. Maybe if he deleted their pirate porn first...

"Find his explosives," Roadhog finally said to some of the crewmembers nearby, "and make sure there's no danger of them going off. _Carefully_."

Junkrat looked like he wanted to go help look for his precious bombs, so Roadhog held him back. Before he could say anything, Junkrat's eyes fell down on the enormous hand on his chest, and he seemed to forget everything else at once. "Hooley dooley," Junkrat said quietly, "that's a big one." Roadhog swiftly pulled his hand back when Junkrat raised a hand of his own, not the mechanical one, to inspect.

"Stay there," Roadhog grunted, a little unnerved despite his superior size and strength and state of being armed compared to Junkrat. When Roadhog touched people, it was usually to hurt them. Even people who didn't know him expected it, just from looking at him. Junkrat's hand was still in the air, fingers relaxed, and his eyes turned up to Roadhog's gas mask again.

Orange eyes. Or yellow? Unusual, at any rate.

"Sure, mate," Junkrat finally conceded as if he'd somehow got what he'd been looking for.

Roadhog just turned with another grunt and declared the matter settled by motioning for Beheader-Pete to come over to the omnic ship. The young man gulped visibly, set his aged radar on the deck with shaking hands and somehow made it over to his captain without managing to fall into the sea while he was at it.

"Sir," he said very quietly, looking at the deck instead of the 'sir' in question.

"Take Bazza with you and go see if there's a working scanner or radar on this ship. Current one's only good for spare parts." Roadhog wasn't sure why the kid was always so afraid of him when the crew had only ever seen him hurt enemies. He supposed it could be some sort of trauma from Pete's earlier years, so he usually tried to come across as neutral as a hulking mountain of fat and muscle topped off with a pig-faced black leather gas mask ever could. It clearly wasn't working, and Mako complained somewhere from deep within the behemoth that was Roadhog, making his voice heard loud and clear. Roadhog sighed, and the sound was a deep rumble coming from him. "Should be updating the War Pig with other parts from this one, too. Fast ship."

"Sir, yes sir." Though somewhat calmer now, Pete still gave that bobblehead nod he'd had the first time Roadhog had spoken to him in that one deserted town on the way to the ocean. Oh well, as long as he did his job. Roadhog's sympathy had limited reserves, and the life he led was slow to refill them.

"Found 'em!" Caz called cheerfully, her shaved head poking through a hatch on the deck. "Everything looks safe!"

Roadhog went over to take a look for himself, his eyes widening at the sheer amount and diversity of the 'explodey' things. "Enough to blow up half the bloody ocean, let alone the ship," he commented. "Leave it there, and we'll decide what to do with it once we're home. We..." He swallowed his words, almost startled, as he felt a hand on his arm, small but unafraid.

"Hey, can I at least take my tapioca flour?" Junkrat hollered, trying to peek down the hatch past Roadhog. "Pretty sure I saw them take that as well since I stored it with the bomb parts and stuff. Omnic drongos, hehe!"

Despite his size, Roadhog was pretty good at whipping around. He did so now to face their guest-prisoner and, perhaps more importantly, to get his hand off his arm. "Didn't I just tell you to stay over there?" he snapped, wondering why he even bothered to point at the spot in question when it was clear that such details mattered little to Junkrat.

"Well, yeah, but these are _my_ bombs you're handling here," Junkrat said, his apologetic tone clearly and badly acted, "my beloved creations."

"Why tapioca flour?" Roadhog asked after yet another moment of incredulous silence. Something told him there would be plenty more to come.

"For boba tea, mate!" Junkrat mimicked rolling little pearls out of tapioca dough. "This nice Taiwanese bloke taught me to make it on one of my old ships. I always run out of store-bought pearls right away, but almost any kitchen has the ingredients. You should try it if you haven't, mate! I'm not exactly a cook myself, but I make a pretty decent tea! Besides, the dough kind of reminds me of plastic explosives," Junkrat rambled on with an out-of-breath giggle.

Roadhog just wanted to be on his way to Port Green. Fresh supplies, ship upgrades, some peace and fucking _quiet_. "Can you use tapioca starch to make explosives?" he asked with a dawning sense of defeat.

"Well... yes," Junkrat admitted, obviously calculating if it might hurt his chances of getting it, "but not with just tea stuff."

"And if I let you make your tea, will you stay where you are and not bother my crew?"

Junkrat blinked several times. He scratched his chin, fidgeted in place, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, scratched his head, pirouetted on his peg leg and opened his mouth again. It had been unbelievably exhausting to look at, and he hadn't even said anything yet. "...yes."

"Really?"

"Sure, mate!"

Roadhog narrowed his eyes, but decided that tea couldn't be _that_ dangerous. "Give him his flour."

"It's the big sack with the white powdery stuff," Junkrat added helpfully, nodding at Caz. She gave her captain a look for this, but didn't complain aloud.

"This one," Ice-Blooded Isaac's (Roadhog barely suppressed a groan every time he just thought of this name) voice could be heard saying below deck. "Here, pull it up."

Caz jumped on the deck, settled into a steady squat and prepared to pull up the sack. "Ready, Isaac! Yo-heave-ho!"

"What the fuck did you just call me?" barked Isaac, grunting as he lifted.

"It's sailor slang, you fucked condom for a brain! Didn't you watch the doco with us last week?"

"...oh. Oh, yeah."

Junkrat cackled in absolute delight. "You know, mates, I've had some fun while I was gone, but you know what I've been missing? Hearing the beautiful English of Straya!"

"Too right," Isaac exclaimed with a burst of excitement as his head popped out of the deck, Caz falling under the weight of the sack with a generous helping of beautiful Strayan curses. "Know what the doco also said? It's the sailors who swear all the time, not the pirates! Can you believe that?"

Junkrat looked downright scandalised. "What, Aussie pirates can't swear now? Well fuck _that_ shit right in the pisshole!"

Isaac and Caz both raised a fist towards the uncaring sky. "Aussie Aussie Aussie!"

This time Roadhog did sigh, but the sound was predictably drowned by the responding chant of "oi oi oi" from the rest of the crew. Even the oldest ones were not old enough to remember much of the world From Before, and if no one on the ship was interested in looking up recent Australian history, Roadhog wasn't going to bother lecturing them. He'd been there when the country he had adopted as his own had taken the land from both those who had lived there for thousands of years and latecomers alike. Any loyalty he may have developed for the Australian government had died right then and there when flesh and blood had been declared worth less than metal and circuits. However, he was going to let his crew have this. Junkers may not have been allowed in civilised parts of Australia and definitely not on its sports teams (so much for fair go, right), but if some old sports chant was going to give them a sense of country and ancestry to hold on to, why not. Roadhog knew exactly how much of that they had been denied, after all.

And of course, thinking of sports and chants reminded him of his original country and its haka. The ones he had performed in sports when he was young. Others he had performed on happy occasions... and in funerals. He had left behind a country and ancestry when he had come to Australia. He was at sea now, but he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to sail back.

Roadhog quietly took the sack from Caz like it was a feather and turned to go back to the War Pig. At least he didn't have to herd Junkrat this time; the twitchy bomber gave him a surprisingly sombre look and followed without protest.

 


	5. Have a Cuppa

Junkrat had talked Roadhog through the entire process of making a nice cup of boba, the pearls themselves, the history of the drink and pretty much everything he knew about tapioca flour and related things he had learned in his travels. Apparently he paid a lot of attention to details that had to do with making things, but had already cheerfully forgotten the names of the people he had met on the ship. And all this from a man who had shown unexpected sympathy to Roadhog's sudden shift in mood - to be perfectly honest, it had made Roadhog a little uncomfortable that a complete stranger could read him so well when his own crew couldn't do it.

"...and this part's important, the water must be boiling or it fucks up the texture, though the slime can always be used for other things," Junkrat explained, kneading the hot, putty-like dough with his metal fingers. "Then I just roll it into little pearls and cook 'em. Easy!"

Roadhog hadn't bothered to mention that he _had_ seen boba tea before; Indonesia was close enough for a casual visit, after all, and there were plenty of pirate-friendly shores these days. Junkrat of all Aussie pirates would have been aware of that. Actually, it was sort of starting to feel like part of the reason Junkrat had started talking so much was so Roadhog would have a distraction from his mood. He really didn't know what to make of this strange man.

"...funny thing about all this sugar and flour, though, I kind of think it's my favourite part of... of abundance, little luxuries like this, we wouldn't have these little things if every part of the world was like the Outback..."

Roadhog blinked, unsure if he'd heard that one right. Had he just detected a hint of deeper thought processes?

"...and surplus flour is a really great thing to have when you're running out of other supplies. Have you ever seen how it catches fire? Heard it used to be pretty exciting to work in bakeries. I cooked half a crew once with some peanut oil, a bucket of water and a sack of flour. It was like _boom_!"

Yeah, that sounded more like it. "...and you stored it with your bomb parts."

"Yeah, but no worries. I'm a responsible demolitionist."

Roadhog was unable to stop the bark of laughter that tore its way out of him, half shock, half genuine amusement. Junkrat really didn't seem like the kind of bloke who needed any more encouragement with his... _thing_ , but it was too late now and he flashed Roadhog a pleased, sharp-toothed grin. He then went back to talking, and it occurred to Roadhog that it was really no wonder he'd had to get so good with explosives. His personality could very well be lethal in large doses, but people desperate enough could still get a hit in before nature took its course.

It wasn't all bad, though, or all that bad. It was really quite amazing how much of himself Junkrat had revealed in such a short time. It was so strange. Despite everything he'd gone through, it was as though Junkrat _wanted_ to trust people instead of fighting it like any sensible Junker. Roadhog couldn't help asking him about it.

"Oh, well, you just seem like the kind of bloke I can trust," Junkrat said like it was the most natural thing in the world gone wrong as he made a syrup for flavouring the pearls.

Why. Why was this happening.

As if detecting the shift in Roadhog's mood like an actually working radar, Junkrat began to regale him with the story of how one of his old crews had started to call him 'Satan' because he'd had the brilliant idea of using locally sourced ingredients in his work and made durian stinkbombs. He had strapped explosives to the overripe fruits and launched them above the pursuing enemies. Very effective, but they'd had to stay out of Malaysia for quite a while after that because the locals had joined the enemy pirates in their efforts to kill Junkrat's crew. It did sound fun, to be perfectly honest, and Roadhog listened with some curiosity now to the story as well as the way it was told and what it told him about Junkrat. He seemed to like old-fashioned phrases Roadhog hadn't heard in a long time. Roadhog was half expecting him to come out with a 'crikey' or 'strewth' any second now. He wondered idly what suggestions Junkrat would have offered for the ship's name if he'd been there from the beginning. The Raw Prawn? Or maybe just Strewth. Strewth, the terror of the sea. Good evening, ladies and Bruces.

"See, that's a smile, I knew you'd be the kind of bloke who can appreciate a bit of good old-fashioned mayhem!" Junkrat boasted, leaving Roadhog wondering if his strange orange eyes were actually bionic and could see through his mask or something. "But yeah, I still have to be careful not to go to certain places in Malaysia. Have to keep that in mind if you ever plan on going there."

It was said so casually that it took Roadhog a moment to realise what Junkrat had just implied. "Did you just decide you're coming with us?"

This time it was Junkrat's turn to blink in confusion. "I'm not?" He turned to poke at the tapioca pearls, as if trying to give himself some time to process this. "Well, mate, I didn't even think you'd just... _not_ take me." He tested the tea mugs that were waiting for the pearls, looking almost satisfied with the temperature. "That's how it's worked so far. My crew dies, I've got to make bombs for another ship. Thought it would at least be nice to work with Australians again."

Considering that Junkrat didn't even want to talk about his first Australian crew, not to mention the little detail of his hunted life in the Australian Outback, Roadhog wondered just how badly he'd been treated on the other ships. It didn't sound like it had been all bad and Junkrat had even had respect on some ships, but...

_But..._

A twinge of Mako's empathy finally twisted its way out of the rubble of buried decades, dying but not quite done yet, before Roadhog could intercept it. Things like Stockholm Syndrome and other psychological concepts that had meant something in the world before. Still did in the world outside. This was exactly why Roadhog didn't let people talk at him about themselves. "We'll..." He looked away, trying to bring himself back to this world. "...talk about it."

Junkrat's reaction was so sincere it very nearly managed to disarm Roadhog. "Ace! Mate, you won't regret it, I can build all sorts of things! I learned on my travels! Radars, scanners, ship repairs, weapons - I'll even add a self-destruct system and put extra explosives in everything!"

"...why would you put explosives in a radar." Roadhog took a moment to reflect on his words. "Or anything else here, but specifically _radar_?"

"Well, in case of an enemy attack, of course. Can't let the bastards take our things and walk on our ship like they own it." It sounded like the most natural thing in the world to Junkrat. It told Roadhog yet another thing about him.

"What if it blows up our crewmembers?"

To his credit, Junkrat went quiet for a moment to consider such a scenario. "They'd go out in a blaze of glory?"

Roadhog pinched the bridge of his nose through his mask. "Right. No explosives in radars. Or scanners. No self-destruct system. Not sure about bombs in weapons, either."

"But Captaaaain! Can't I put my own personal stamp on my creations?" Junkrat whined like a sort of terrifying two-metre child.

"Not your captain. Yet." It seemed to Roadhog that pressing a stamp, no matter how gently, to any of Junkrat's creations was an excellent way to lose an arm. He gave Junkrat's prosthesis an appraising glance. "And no."

Junkrat took a moment to pout at this merciless judgement, but he cheered up quickly enough when he noticed that the tea he'd had steeping had finally cooled down completely. He quickly made the drinks with obvious experience. "It's ready! I like it colder than that, but any boba tea's good. Don't suppose you've got straws here?"

Roadhog just tilted his head.

"...right. Barbaric. Right barbaric." Junkrat took a few spoons as if he was the one who took things and walked on this ship like he owned it. "But that's Junkers for ya! We'll just improvise."

Roadhog had just straightened his neck when he felt the need to tilt his head again at the mug being offered to him. Mostly at the happy gesture, but also at the fact that he still couldn't quite believe any of this was happening. He battled his instincts for a moment, but he _did_ occasionally drink beer in public. He'd just have to raise his mask enough to uncover his mouth. He finally grunted something that he hoped didn't sound too much like a thank-you and accepted the tea.

His hand made the mug look absolutely tiny, and Junkrat stared again with completely unhidden fascination. This wasn't going to work after all.

"I'll drink it in my cabin," he muttered and gestured for Junkrat to follow him out of the kitchen. "Alone," he specified just in case his gesturing had looked like an invitation to join him. Smart move: judging by his expression, Junkrat had clearly taken it as such.

"Oh well," he said and poured his tea in the canteen he had on his hip, one of the safer possessions he'd been reunited with.

The ship had resumed its journey while Roadhog had watched Junkrat in the kitchen, and by now the crew's native shore was close and inviting, Port Green calling them home. Most of the time Roadhog also called Port Green home, even as he looked back to the sea. It was still a nice place. Good to see its green gardens.

"Shiver me fucking timbers!" Junkrat just about exploded as he saw them. "How long has that been there?"

Roadhog frowned. It would have been impossible not to see the gardens when visiting Port Green. "About fifteen years, I think."

Junkrat's face fell and recovered in such a short time that Roadhog wondered if anyone else had been able to see it. "Bonzer. Town probably got named after the green bits?"

"Probably."

"'Shiver me fucking timbers?' Ya join our crew?" asked Isaac, approaching the captain and the... whatever Junkrat's status was right now. Most of the crew was still waiting for Roadhog's decision, but the two young Junkers who had talked to Junkrat before the making of the boba had decided that he was an all right sort.

"Oh! Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!" Junkrat shrieked, probably making Isaac somewhat regret his decision.

"I've got a name..."

"Yeah, but I forgot it! Mate, I'm gonna sail on this ship when you leave Green Port again! I'll be the... whatever this ship's name is demolitionist now!"

Yep, Roadhog had been right earlier. Once again he could only give Junkrat an incredulous stare.

"Well, first of all," Isaac began, putting on a posh accent he'd learned from his docos, "the ship's called the War Pig. And it's not Green Port, it's Port Green. And my name's Isaac - Ice-Blooded Isaac!"

Roadhog stifled a groan.

"Well I _am_ sorry, Mr Hunt," Junkrat said sincerely. "It's just we're in the same boat now! Uh, ship. Lots of people get so particular about the distinction.

Isaac looked confused. "My last name's not Hunt."

Junkrat let out a quiet giggle. Caz, who had been following close behind her crewmate, looked less amused. "Isaac Hunt, sound it out! I swear you're thicker than an elephant's dick sometimes. Isaa-chunt!"

It looked like it took Isaac a moment to decide if he'd just been called well hung or just been insulted, but eventually he got to muttering the name under his breath until it finally clicked. "Oi! You just called me a cunt!"

This time Junkrat cackled openly. "Found me out there, mate."

"Is that, uh... good cunt... or bad cunt?" Isaac wanted to know.

"Well, that depends on you, don't it?"

Isaac and Caz began to laugh too, and it was at this point that Roadhog decided he'd heard more than he could tolerate for now. For the rest of the day. For the rest of the _week_. Since it looked like Junkrat was gaining popularity with his crew, he might as well fuck off to his cabin and let them handle him.

"I'm off," he said, barely bothering to make eye contact with anyone, not that anyone could tell. Except maybe Junkrat. Damn it. "Tell me when we're there."

Apparently Junkrat greatly underestimated Roadhog's ability to hear his extremely loud voice. Roadhog could hear the younger man's deeply impressed blabber quite clearly on his way down.

"Fucking hell, he's big! Wonder if he's proportional?"

Isaac made a dismissive sound, going for his 'educated' tone again. "Most certainly isn't. Even a bloke that big is too small for hands that big."

Caz said something about Isaac displaying his thickness for all to see and admire, and Junkrat let out a hyena cackle that was still beating on Roadhog's eardrums by the time he made it into the safety and privacy of his cabin. Just a bit of time to himself, that was all he needed. A bit of time on the land, and then he'd return to the sea refreshed and ready to pillage. He was going to need that rest if he was going to...

...ah, he really was going to let that walking disaster waiting to happen on his ship, wasn't he. The fact was that they did need more fighters if they were going to expand into even more dangerous waters. He had seen with his own eyes that Junkrat's bombs were effective against ships and omnics, and he _had_ stood against the Queen of Junkertown.

Roadhog glanced down at the hands Junkrat had found so fascinating, dwarfing the tea mug. For some reason, Junkrat had put in two spoons. After a moment of hesitation, Roadhog raised his free hand to lift his mask.

Not bad at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Good evening, ladies and Bruces" was pilfered from a Monty Python sketch. (I should probably also list "droid rot" and "metal bastard" as being from Red Dwarf!)


	6. The Weight of History Is an Anchor

Of course, Roadhog heard them reach port long before someone ran to his door to inform him of this fact, but he'd had some time to rest and felt ready to deal with the noise. Jonno moved out of his way with commendable haste after doing his duty and quickly disappeared deeper into the ship to take care of other business.

The smell of food from the nearby pub greeted Roadhog as he stepped outside. He'd go in for a meal once he'd settled in his usual room. Despite the abundance of seafood in this 'profession', he somehow never got tired of it here in Port Green.

Junkrat seemed excited about the prospect of food, too. He appeared so silently at Roadhog's side despite his peg leg that, for a brief moment, the cynical captain seriously considered the possibility of teleportation technology in his falsies. "Do you smell that? Do you smell _that_?" Junkrat's hand was on Roadhog's arm again, trembling with excitement. "I can't _wait_ to get in there and have some of that. I'm so fucking empty I could stuff a whole bloody kraken in my stomach!"

Roadhog could tell the crew had frozen a little, looking at Junkrat hang off his arm as though their captain wasn't a feared killer on both land and sea. He gave the hand a pointed look that had absolutely no effect on the overstimulated pirate: Junkrat simply kept talking as if he himself was unaware of his limbs, which was very possible, come to think of it. "...feels like the last time I ate was in the bloody Philippines, don't know if I could even survive that. Oh, I hope I've still got my money somewhere!"

Roadhog carefully peeled the hand off his arm and let it drop. With about as little situational awareness as he had demonstrated putting the hand there in the first place, Junkrat hobbled forward to the front of the ship to go take a closer look at the town, heedless of the crew's reactions.

Well, he _was_ very undernourished. His brain was probably running on fumes by now. "Make sure he gets something to eat and somewhere to sleep," Roadhog said to the pirate standing nearest to him. "We'll see if he'll be more... _together_ then."

As skeptical as Bazza looked, he obeyed his captain at once. "Righto, shark biscuit," he said as he approached Junkrat, "I'll show you around, so stay close."

"I'll have you know I've been thrown to the sharks before, and they spat me out!" Junkrat cackled.

With a shake of his head that was meant to be disapproving and came out a little sad instead, Roadhog prepared to jump off the War Pig and put the bizarre young man out of his mind for a while. People like Junkrat got to him far more than the typical brainless Junkertown looter. He had found it very hard to look at the results of his war in those early days - that was one of the most important reasons he'd donned his mask, really, not wanting people to see his humanity in the ruins of the Outback. While his sympathy and regret had slowly but surely bled out of him as he had watched his former home turn into the hellhole it was now, he still couldn't help but feel some guilt when he met people who seemed to have something broken about them.

"Don't lean over too far, shark biscuit. Fall in the water, all that metal's gonna pull you under."

"Yeah, down under. It'll be like going back home anyway!"

"Are you actually insane? Not always a good quality in a pirate."

"It's worked for me so far!"

He glanced at Junkrat and wondered what someone like him could have been in an unbroken world, with all of his apparent talent and none of the radiation. Roadhog had been right there when the omnium... had...

He shook his head, but the thought didn't fall out. He couldn't help torturing himself a little with the knowledge that without his existence, Junkrat would still, if nothing else, at least have all his original limbs. And not only Junkrat, but far too many others like him...

Roadhog grunted at himself to stop thinking about it. "You all know the rules," he said to his crew, raising his voice a bit more than was necessary. "Not too many pirate films while you're here. Wouldn't want to put you down."

"They kept that Depp bloke alive until 2051 or something so he could keep playing that role," Bazza whispered to Junkrat. "Captain always says he'll send us to old Davy Jones' locker if we quote those films too much."

"Really?" Junkrat, for his part, seemed physically incapable of whispering. "Fucking Disney, mate."

Not wanting to hear the rest of this conversation, Roadhog didn't bother to wait for the ship to fully dock. He just jumped down on the pier and began to make his way to his room, leaving all the work for the crew. It was the usual arrangement, and nobody complained. On sea, Roadhog made the hard and important decisions, took on the most dangerous enemies, carried the most weight; on land, he was left to recharge in peace. Besides, he liked to perform some other tasks for his old friends for the opportunity to just maybe ride his bike and be by himself with something to occupy his thoughts. He already had something in mind for this stay.

As for Junkrat, he was busy watching his new captain - not officially his captain yet, but soon he would be - make his way towards what looked like a residential area, nodding at the dock workers who greeted him in a friendly tone even as they moved out of his way with some nervousness. Junkrat had never personally met him before this, but of course he had heard of Roadhog in Junkertown. Who hadn't?

Looked just like the drawings, too. Junkrat wondered if anyone alive knew what he looked like without the mask. Good, probably. Looked good with it, too. Had Junkrat touched his arm? He wasn't sure. Probably. Shit, he'd have to apologise for being a twat. But bloody hell, Roadhog was huuuuge. He was so fucking big and dangerous and yet so _gentle_. The stories did _no_ justice to how gloriously, magnificently...

"You can start by making yourself useful if you're gonna join us," Bazza said with some hesitation, probably a bit disturbed by Junkrat's blissful grin. Well, that was his problem. "We'll take you to see the town leaders to get you a room and some food, then you can help us dismantle the enemy ships."

Already distracted from admiring Roadhog, Junkrat turned his grin on Bazza, who shrank a little before the undiluted lunacy. "Mate, I'm _always_ ready to scrap some omnics."

"Yeah, well... probably best to eat first," stammered Bazza. "And, uh, see the leaders."

The second mention of food finally made it sink in for Junkrat that he was, in fact, still practically starving and could use something to eat as quickly as possible. That made focusing on the meeting and the inevitable questions a bit rough, but luckily it was fairly short and provided Junkrat with another interesting distraction: Australians from his part of the Outback who had no idea who he was and that he had found some sort of treasure. Pretty refreshing, really. They did want to know the names of the Junkers who had smuggled him to the sea without ever seeing Port Green, and Junkrat told them through bared teeth. Fucking bastards had thought they'd get his secret out of him. It still pissed him off that he hadn't been able to personally cook any of them himself.

But oh well, that was all in the past now and the leaders didn't ask any more hard questions and Junkrat was going to sail with someone who was tough enough to survive by himself and spit on the Queen's rule. The thought turned his grimace into a grin. Mayhem on the sea. He couldn't wait to get to know Roadhog better.

"Well, I can see your thoughts are already somewhere else," said one of the grey-haired ones. He had introduced himself, but names had never really stuck with Junkrat. "We'll find you a room you can use when you're in town. You'll get one free meal in the Billabong while you're waiting."

Junkrat nodded eagerly despite his rapidly depleting energy reserves, eyes a little unfocused. "Ta, mate! Can't wait!"

 

* * *

 

The sea air filled Roadhog's room through the open window as he cleaned the worst of the dust that had accumulated in the weeks he'd been away. His old friend never left him these days, lingering on everything he owned in the form of salt-scent and splashes of water. It was not exactly the life he had left before the other life he had lost, but it was close enough that he finally had moments when he just felt content with himself and the world that surrounded him. And while the people he shared the world with were a different story most of the time, at least he and his crew had a decent understanding between each other.

It was going to be an adjustment to get used to a new member on that crew.

Roadhog sighed at the walls. He was in no mood to stay indoors today, but he did need some rest before heading to the desert in the morning. He turned to look at the map of the towns he'd be visiting - some abandoned during the Omnic Crisis, some during and after the explosion - and felt a little sourer. The oldest ones on his list had been built back in the 30s and 40s when, in hindsight, things had really started going to hell; it had been covered up pretty well at the time, but the new wave of expansion, or rather encroachment, into the Outback regardless of what the people who had lived there first thought of it had set a very dangerous precedent. Suits had wanted something, money and power had written the contracts, latest technology had made it possible. It seemed to Roadhog that the history of humanity was just one long stretch of injustice broken by the odd period of hard-won peace, where those with power could briefly be forced to not step _quite_ so hard on those without it. By the time Roadhog was born, the current period of that sort had run out in much of the world... Australia included.

His eyes landed on a familiar spot with the word _Omnium_ written above it. He knew for a fact that none of the aboriginal people in _that_ particular area had ever been consulted, though that too had been covered up at the time as much as it could be. And while the omnics in that area were scrap now, the people with the right to the land still hadn't been able to return to their normal lives. There had been so many of them in ALF. Some of them Roadhog had known long before he had joined as well, still feeling guilty because he had not had the strength to fight in his native New Zealand.

So many cut down by omnic fire.

Roadhog brushed at the remains of the omnium on the map, as if to touch the unmarked graves of the people still buried there. His appetite was gone, but suddenly he didn't want to be alone. Although he had to force himself to turn away, he soon found himself leaving his room and heading for the pub.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must never say the words "I hope to update by/in ---" again. I think it forces some sort of telepathic connection to my work, and they decide I don't have enough to do...


	7. Flickering

He wasn't sure what exactly he'd been expecting - he had given this order himself, after all - but somehow Roadhog found himself a little startled when he finally entered the Billabong and saw Junkrat sitting there with Bazza, who seemed a little terrified of the newly energised man next to him. Those maniacal orange eyes fell on Roadhog, wide with joy.

"Hi, Captain!" Junkrat shrieked in a calorie-fuelled frenzy, waving his mechanical arm in a wide, careless arc that somehow didn't manage to hit anything vital.

Roadhog supposed a voice like that could be called both a curse and a blessing. Right now it was the latter, drowning out his own gloomy thoughts. He quickly nodded at the owner, a rough woman from before whom her customers knew as Nails (Roadhog was pretty sure she used to be Sophie, but it didn't really matter now), and her troublemakers as Tough As. She knew Roadhog was ordering his usual without needing to say it, giving her own wordless grunt in return, and with that matter settled Roadhog turned to Junkrat with a sort of approval that both surprised and worried him.

"You've settled in, then," he stated, suspecting that making it sound too much like a question would be seen as yet another invitation.

Junkrat nodded so vigorously that Roadhog, still in spite of himself, feared that he would damage his neck, too. "Yeah, mate, cheers, Captain! Got a little room and everything. Thanks for that, it's been a long time since I had something nice like that! They said I can't make bombs in there, but there's a workshop nearby and everything! What a great little town."

Grunting in reply, Roadhog was briefly distracted by the smells already coming from the kitchen. They must've started preparations when they heard he was back in town. Sometimes it was a comfort to still have people he'd known in the world before the blast. "You've had your free meal?"

"Oh yeah, it was great. Have to see if I've still got money left so I can get a beer or something, or maybe some more to eat, delicious..." There was an odd pause during which Junkrat's eyes glazed over a little. They turned towards the ceiling, blinking slowly, before Junkrat seemed to sort of descend back into his body and settle back into his usual grin. He tapped his empty plate with a mechanical finger. "It was delicious."

Roadhog nodded slowly. "Good... we'll get you more so you don't starve, but we expect you to do your share here."

"Oh, of course! I'm good at building and fixing things, did I tell you?" Junkrat squinted at something in his mind's eye. "Yeah, I probably did. It's a little foggy now."

"Probably a good idea to have one of the town doctors take a look at you while we're here," Roadhog said, gently persuading his rising worry to go right back into the cesspit of suppressed emotions it had crawled out of. "But that's for later. I'm here for the food, too."

"Yeah? Can I..."

Roadhog was already turning away, trusting Bazza to do his part; from the corner of his eye he could see the kid reluctantly, as if expecting an explosion, put a hand on Junkrat's shoulder and quickly whisper to him one of the most important rules of the crew.

"Shh, sit down, Captain wants to eat alone!"

"What, really? I wouldn't be too loud!" whispered Junkrat with a volume that could've driven the dead from their graves.

"Fucking Christ, just please sit still. I'll get you a beer or two, okay? Is that good?"

Although Roadhog had already reached his usual spot on the other side of the pub, back turned to any curious eyes, he had no trouble hearing this exchange. He tuned the rest of it out when it became apparent that Junkrat was safely distracted by the promise of alcohol and snacks. Not long after, a short and wide man came out of the kitchen with Roadhog's usual. The scent of simple seafood and vegetables was somehow still intoxicating to him after all this time exploring the flavours of Australia's nearest neighbours. There were some former everyday things Roadhog missed, of course; the kingfish that couldn't be fished here, for one thing, and just simple things like a good old avo toast when he wanted a small snack. Now he usually had to go to Indonesia for that sort of thing.

Not to mention the things he would've eaten back home, but that sort of thing was something not to mention, wasn't it.

Roadhog pushed his mask up and started with the golden snapper. As his mind began to wander in the scents and flavours and lingering memories, it became weaker against Junkrat's ever-pervasive voice; turned out the current thing he just couldn't shut up about was, coincidentally enough, avocados. More specifically, a really really good jus alpukat he'd had in Indonesia and had apparently committed to memory with conscientiousness that other people put into remembering names and survival tactics. Junkrat wished to know if they grew avocados here in Port Green, but it was unclear whether he ever heard the short answer Nails gave from the thunder in his ears. Another customer shifted in his chair in a way that sounded nervous to Roadhog.

Funny, wasn't it... they'd all become pirates in this post-apocalyptic town, but too much non-drunken solo loudness still made a lot of people uncomfortable.

As Roadhog continued listening, he idly went through his plans for the morning. The towns he needed to look at. Some maintenance work. Trade with the Aboriginal people living in the area if he came across anyone. Emu oil would be useful. If he saw a familiar face, the conversation would be welcome.

"Is he done? Can I go talk now?"

"Settle down! You've got a beer, what more do you want from me?"

"Rude! I just wanted to... to... before I..."

At these strange pauses, Roadhog pushed his mask back down and turned to glance at his new demolitionist. Maybe he really needed that doctor now; his eyes had that glassy look once more, and he even came close to dropping his beer. This time it took him a bit longer to blink the look away, but once he managed that, he jumped right back to his far too energetic self. He seemed quite pleased to have Roadhog's attention, so Roadhog quickly motioned for him to come over before he could shout whatever he wanted to say right across the pub. Bazza scrambled to follow Junkrat, clearly wringing his hands in despair in his mind if not in body.

"What do you want," Roadhog asked, pushing around the last piece of fish he'd forgotten in his hurry to cover his face. Junkrat's eyes fell on it; with a sigh, Roadhog pushed his plate across the table and made a probably too friendly gesture to go for it.

"Cheers!" Junkrat squealed, at least trying to be polite, before taking the fish and swallowing it whole. He then forgot to wait or at least ask for permission to sit down at his captain's table. Bazza stayed where he was, but Roadhog could tell that he'd stopped breathing. "Heard you're heading out tomorrow!"

Roadhog just nodded, trying to decide whether to be annoyed or not. It wasn't exactly a secret that he liked to drive around on land when they came back from the sea, but...

Ah, forget it. People like Junkrat tended to find out things because they kept asking questions until someone cracked. "Doing maintenance," grunted Roadhog, immediately wondering how it was possible to fuck up so thoroughly in just two words. He really had cracked quickly, hadn't he.

The orange fire in Junkrat's widening eyes began to burn too brightly to not be alarming. If he finished his beer so quickly to douse some it, he'd failed miserably. "Maintenance! I knew there had to be... the people who brought me here, fuck them, even though I've had fun too, I heard them stop for fuel sometimes and wondered how the hell there could still be fuel out here, and the stuff that lasts forever too, but then I heard..." Junkrat gasped as he finally ran out of breath and managed to make it look startling enough that Roadhog was genuinely worried for a second. And then, just like that, he recovered enough to draw breath again and continued like some sort of relentless perpetual babbling machine. "...heard people sometimes go out to the ghost towns and I heard 'maintenance' and put two and two together and!"

It took Roadhog a moment and some furious blinking to accept that the stream of words had, like the onslaught of a locust swarm passing by, finally ended. "...yes," he confirmed after some careful consideration, "we refill them sometimes."

"Mate, you'll have to tell me all about that," Junkrat blurted in utter fascinated bliss. It was actually sort of hard to resist, not to mention so pure that it looked wrong on that face, so Roadhog looked away. "Can I please come with you tomorrow? I promise I won't blow anything up."

Against all logic and common sense, Roadhog looked back into those orange eyes. He gritted his teeth in vain, wondering whatever had happened to the feared pirate captain he had been just earlier that day. "...suppose you should learn about what we do here sooner or later," he conceded.

Bazza seemed to relax and breathe a little easier; after all, it would mean someone else would look after the new recruit.

"Yesss, sooner," Junkrat giggled to himself. "A fuel run, just like in that Fury Road thing!"

Roadhog sighed. Of course he knew of that one. "Just without gunfights and chase scenes and explosions."

"Yeah, well, I can dream, can't I?" Junkrat began to push himself out of his chair. He seemed a little unsteady. "Anyway, that's what I wanted to say before my nap. Been a really long trip. And mate..."

Roadhog would remind Junkrat to stop with the 'mate' thing when he was awake enough to remember it. For now, he stood up to go pay for his food and go get some rest of his own. "Nine o'clock tomorrow. And what?"

Junkrat swayed on his foot and peg a moment, truly running on fumes by now. "You're... you're Roadhog, aren't you? Heard about you in Junkertown. Heard a lot."

"I bet." Roadhog tried to remember if anyone had actually called him by his name on the ship, but it was true: he _was_ pretty well known in Junkertown.

"You were there before... before we went Mad Max for real, weren't you?"

There was something in the grin Junkrat flashed up at Roadhog that he couldn't quite interpret; it was over too soon, replaced by that glassy look one more time before Junkrat simply went out like a lamp and quite unceremoniously crashed against Roadhog's shoulder. He was asleep before Roadhog stopped his fall to the floor, once again astonished by this bizarre man that had already wormed his way into his crew and free time. What the hell had happened there? No answers were forthcoming.

"Yeah," Bazza moved to offer his expert analysis, "probably best if he doesn't help with the ships today after all."

The only thing Roadhog could give in reply was a grunt. To Junkrat he gave a nudge, but the exhausted sea rat was already breathing deeply and didn't look like he was going to wake up in a long while. Roadhog sighed, reminding himself that they really did need another fighter on the crew. If Junkrat turned out to be as good as he implied, they'd just put up with his... eccentricity.

"Show me to his room."

 


	8. The Captain Challenged

Once Junkrat had been put to bed, Roadhog had felt that he'd had enough social interaction to be alone again and spent the rest of the day in blissful silence. Not in his room, where there was silence but not of the blissful kind; he had simply gone riding along the coastline until he had found a nice place to just fish and sit and quietly deal with his thoughts of any other life he had or had once had in his past. It was unbearably hard, sometimes, to have any of that. Too many people who depended on him and reminded him of the ones he had already failed. He was probably thinking so much of it now because he had agreed to take another member on his crew, this one clearly more of a handful than all the others put together. It didn't help that he'd been in one of his moods lately. While violence had a way of taking his mind off things in the heat of battle, in his downtime it had a bad tendency to come back and bring all of its friends with it.

He could live with it, really he could, but there were still those times when he remembered having a little more in his life than being able to just live with it. Lighter things, happier things. There was no point in hoping he could have some of that back, but sometimes he did anyway. Sometimes he let it all come back and wash over him in a torrent of agony over everything he had once held and lost, and it hurt. Hurt. So. Good. And who was going to come and take that from him?

No takers? No one suicidal enough? Thought so.

He had gone back home when the ever-scorching sun had begun to bleed all the shades of fire upon the sea, riding fast and hard as if he could race the sundown itself. He hadn't been able to feel the wind on his face, but it had been all over his hair and arms and chest, slowly cooling his skin and anchoring him to that fleeting moment of his bike's wheels struggling on the shifting sand and the occasional rocks - just his physical body, no thoughts, just him and the sea that wasn't so big between Australia and its neighbours but was connected to the great oceans of the world. For a while, his mind itself had seemed to melt away and lose itself in the embers of the coming night. It was a rarer, a little less comfortable bliss. Felt good in its own way, though.

And the following morning, as he dragged himself out of a mess of jumbled and jagged dreams to prepare himself for another trip to the Outback, it hit him that he had promised to take Junkrat with him. With a pained grunt, Roadhog threw together a quick breakfast from the fish he'd cooked after his trip last night and contemplated his choice. He was really determined to punish himself, wasn't he? At this point it was starting to look like another one of his "hurts so good" things.

He finished his food and got up to wash his dishes, listening to the sounds it made in his room. On autopilot, he went to get his bike so he could take it to one of the town mechanics. It had probably been a stupid idea to drive so far when he knew the engine needed to be looked at, but life hadn't managed to kill him off so far and wouldn't do so with just a little walk back to Port Green. Or maybe a swim. It had been a while since he had last gone for a swim...

"Morning, Captain!" Junkrat greeted him seemingly out of nowhere. Roadhog actually found himself a little startled.

"...rested well?" he asked, trying not to sound too involved. He told himself it was just astonishment over the fact that Junkrat had managed to sneak on him so quietly; he had to be even more tired than before if he couldn't make noise. Come to think of it, what was even more of a surprise was the fact that Junkrat had managed to crawl out of bed in time for Roadhog's excursion.

For a reason known only to himself, Junkrat took a moment to balance on his peg leg before replying. "Yeah, I haven't slept so well in days... months... hours?" He gave a slightly less reckless and more conversational wave than before with his mechanical arm. "In any case, my brain's working much better now!"

Roadhog was skeptical, but cautiously relieved. "Ready, then?"

"Yeah, absol..." Junkrat's vigorous nod ended on a downward glance and a delighted widening of his eyes. "Oo, that's a big one!"

"...what?"

Junkrat looked up, brows already creased in confusion. "What what?"

It wasn't that Roadhog felt threatened or offended, but he sort of wanted to see where this weird man was going with this line of thought. It seemed obvious enough, but he was sure he would end up surprised in some way. "You look between my legs, after your comment yesterday..."

"Oh? Oh! Uh, sorry about that, mate. My mate Caloy always used to say I should have some filters installed." Junkrat burst out with a nervous giggle and spent a moment fidgeting where he stood. "I was talking about that bike you're sitting on, Captain! That's absolutely massive! What a beaut!"

A massive bike for a massive man, of course. Roadhog shrugged. Junkrat's reaction made sense. "It's proportional."

"Yeah, it is!" Junkrat giggled some more, possibly catching the laconic reference to what he'd said back on the ship, possibly just because. "Great bloke, Caloy. Lucky bastard left the ship the last time we were in the Philippines. Wished I'd done the same back then!"

Well, Roadhog hadn't asked to know any of this, but thanks to Junkrat's inability to drop a topic, he did now anyway. He'd been meaning to drive his bike to the mechanic, but decided to walk it instead. As he was swinging his leg over the saddle, he happened to notice Bazza appear from behind some buildings not far from where Roadhog and Junkrat stood, clearly frantic and looking for something. No, probably a certain someone. This was confirmed when he saw his captain and the new recruit, as if they could not be seen, and froze for a moment in horror.

"Does the bike have a name, too?" Junkrat continued, fully oblivious. "Is it Landlubber? Weird word, always thought it sounded like some sort of themed condom brand."

Something stirred and tickled at the bottom of the emptiness that had haunted Roadhog since his return to Port Green. As he stood there slightly bewildered, trying to make sense of it, Junkrat's arm reached for the bike - not the probably abrasive robotic arm, thankfully, but from the corner of his eye Roadhog saw Bazza's fist seek refuge between his teeth in despair at the sight. Bazza began to sneak back behind the buildings, knees wobbling with nerves, and they were alone again.

"No name," Roadhog grunted, oddly content to let Junkrat slowly take over more and more talking duties. "Leaving it at the mechanic so we can go."

Junkrat's eyes widened again as he looked up. "What, we're not taking this one? Wait, mechanic? Mate, I can take a look at your bike! It would be a shame not to ride this one now that we're finally on land!"

Well, it certainly was true that it was an impressive bike and a joy to ride. However... "I don't want you to blow it up. We're taking the ute."

With a sigh as though his very soul had been rent from his body, Junkrat deflated, sagged and refilled with energy with speed that must have given him whiplash. He continued to inspect the bike with an almost vibrating reverence, surprisingly careful with the paint job and his metal hand. As he leaned too far over the saddle to investigate some more, he abruptly toppled out of balance and, before Roadhog could even react, ended up somersaulting onto the other side of the bike in a confusing and mildly terrifying heap of too long limbs and torso.

"...what are you doing?"

"Mate, don't ask me," replied Junkrat, himself a little mystified. He poked at his pegleg as if to navigate his exact limb location.

Laughter rose within Roadhog like bile. He managed to squash it - for now. "Who, then?"

"No idea, really." Junkrat managed to kick his legs straight. "Strewth!"

Roadhog's entire upper body stiffened, and he quickly turned his face away despite his mask covering it. _Thought he'd never say that._

"Laughing at my misfortune, are you?" Junkrat observed with a huge shark grin, apparently not one to stop even when in distress. "Well, that's pirate captains for you, all wicked and cruel and cantankerous!"

"Settle down, Crocodile Dundee," Roadhog replied once he could be sure he'd wiped all the traces of laughter out of his voice.

Junkrat definitely got back up fast for someone whose leg prosthetic had no ankle. He uncoiled himself and was up on his feet like a spring, already regaining energy. "Oh, oh! Maybe I should get myself a big blade as well! And then when we're against other pirates, I can tell them 'that's not a cutlass!'"

Roadhog grunted, beginning to walk his bike to the mechanic. He had somehow forgotten, for a fleeting moment, that he was a pirate captain. He glanced at Junkrat to make sure he was following. "And put bombs in it?"

"Yes! Yes, finally you see my genius! I... wait, that wasn't permission, was it?"

This time Roadhog did laugh aloud, deep and dark like the dread pirate he was. Junkrat, being the dread demolitionist that he was, wasn't fooled for a second; he followed Roadhog and his bike with a brilliant grin and confidence that rivalled that of the blaze of the sun overhead.

 


End file.
